Which Notes to Balance for Bansuri Practice

Question

One tutorial (at end of post) shows instructor balancing all notes on Sa, i.e.

starting from low octave ...

'pa Sa

'da Sa

through the middle octave ...

Re Sa

Ga Sa

and finally high octave, the only note

PA Sa

There are total of 15 notes (forget half notes right now). He is balancing 14 notes on Sa

Wouldn't it be good practice to balance all notes on each 15 notes?

So if we start with low octave 'pa, we balance remaining notes on it.

The we proceed to 'da, the continue to middle notes and finally high octave of PA

Do people actually practice this way? While it seems fascinating, there are a total of 15 x 14 balancing pairs to play, i.e. 15 x 14 = 210!

And let's say you want to go in reverse, i.e.

PA Ma

PA Ga

all the way down to

PA 'pa

And the continuing with Ma, i.e.

Ma PA

Ma Ga

etc, this would be 210 x 2 balancing pairs = 420

Playing 420 balancing pairs seems rather overwhelming? Or is this a wonderful goal to eventually play the notes faster and clearer?

Because some note transitions give me difficulties right now, it from Ga to 'da it sounds like a whosh of air.

What are recommendations?

Answer 1

I'm not sure what you mean by 'balancing'. I assume you mean ensuring that both notes have the same tone quality and dynamics, and that you get a smooth transition between them.

Yes, that's 420 pairs of notes to consider, but only very few of them will be difficult. Ignore the easy ones (revisit them later) and concentrate on the difficult ones. Do all the pairs in both directions, up and down.